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Shell has scrapped its plans to develop the Cambo North Sea oilfield, throwing the future of the controversial project firmly opposed by climate activists into doubt.The oil giant said it had concluded the economic case for investment in the project off the Shetland Isles is “not strong enough” and also cited the potential for delays in a surprise statement on Thursday.Private equity-backed energy firm Siccar Point – which owns a majority stake in the field – confirmed that Shell had “taken the decision to not progress its investment at this stage”.The Cambo project has been at the centre of political debate on whether the UK should develop new fossil fuel resources, as Boris Johnson’s government seeks to cut carbon emissions to meet net zero targets in the decades ahead.While Shell’s move to pull out does not necessarily mean the end of oil development in the field off the coat of Shetland, Greenpeace hailed the news as a potential “deathblow” for the project.Philip Evans, oil campaigner at the environmental campaign group, said: “This really should be the deathblow for Cambo. With yet another key player turning its back on the scheme the government is cutting an increasingly lonely figure with their continued support for the oil field.”Calling on the UK government to reject the drilling license, the Greenpeace campaigner added: “Anything else would be a disaster for our climate and would leave the UK consumer vulnerable to volatile fossil fuel markets.”Shell has owned 30 per cent in the Cambo project, while Siccar Point, which operates it, holds the remaining 70 per cent. “Cambo remains critical to the UK’s energy security and economy,” Siccar Point’s chief executive, Jonathan Roger, said in a statement.“While we are disappointed at Shell’s change of position … we will continue to engage with the UK government and wider stakeholders on the future development of Cambo,” he added.Despite Siccar Point’s insistence that the project could still go ahead, Labour said it was a “significant moment in the fight against the Cambo oil field”.Ed Miliband, shadow secretary for climate change, said: “It makes no environmental sense and now Shell are accepting it doesn’t make economic sense.”Urging the government to reject drilling license, the Labour frontbencher said: “Shell have woken up to the fact that Cambo is the wrong choice. It’s long past time for the government to do so.”Mr Miliband added: “Ploughing on with business as usual on fossil fuels will kill off our chances of keeping 1.5 degrees alive and carries huge risks for investors as it is simply an unsustainable choice.”Mr Johnson and his ministers have faced intense pressure to rule out support for the planned Cambo development. If approved, the project would produce up to 170 million barrels of oil between 2025 and 2050.If the Cambo license is approved by the UK’s Oil and Gas Authority, drilling could start as early as next year. Mr Johnson’s Scottish secretary Alister Jack recently told the BBC we should “100 per cent we should open the Cambo oil field”.Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has also come under to pressure to oppose the fossil fuel project, although she has pointed out that the decision on licenses sits with UK authorities.Having previously only called for the drilling application to be “reassessed”, the SNP leader made clear last month that she believed the proposed oil field off Shetland “should not get the green light”. More

Climate agreements reached in Glasgow this month could come under legal attack from polluting multinationals unless the UK takes urgent action to reform global trade rules at an upcoming summit, ministers have been warned.A coalition of environmental campaign groups, development charities and unions are urging the government to use its clout as host of the Cop26 climate change summit to drive through change at next week’s crucial World Trade Organisation meeting.The UK must use its “unique opportunity” to take bold action to align world trade rules with the internationally-agreed imperative to keep global warming beneath 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the group said.In a letter to Cop26 president Alok Sharma and international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, seen by The Independent, they called on the UK to put pressure on the WTO to agree a “climate waiver” which would prohibit countries from using the global body to challenge one another’s climate policies.Rules should be changed to ensure they do not “slow down, constrict, raise the cost of or otherwise interfere with climate action”, the letter said.Current WTO rules can deter countries from introducing measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of fear of costly arbitration of cases brought by companies which lose out from the change.The letter highlighted the case of the Netherlands being sued by energy company RWE over efforts to phase out coal-fired power stations.And it warned that the UK could face similar action from investors with a stake in around £120bn worth of fossil fuel infrastructure.The EU has previously been challenged at the WTO on competition ground by China over its renewable energy schemes.And Indonesia and Malaysia recently launched a challenge to EU policy on limiting the proportion of palm oil – seen as a major cause of deforestation – in biofuels.Malaysia – a leading voice in the CPTPP Pacific trade partnership which Britain is seeking to join – has said that the UK would have to revise its approach to palm oil to get a trade deal.Meanwhile, a possible ministerial statement on trade and the environment expected to be agreed at the WTO’s MC12 summit in Geneva is thought unlikely to commit members to any binding action. And a UK-backed fossil fuel subsidy statement appears to be limited to an agreement on “capacity-building and exchange of information and experience”.And WTO rules can hamper the transfer of climate change technology to developing countries while fostering increases in unsustainable production and deforestation.“International trade rules are standing in the way of action on climate change,” warned the letter, signed by 12 groups including the Trade Justice Movement, Friends of the Earth, Traidcraft, Global Justice Now and Unison.“Whilst making some important steps in the right direction, the climate conference did not live up to expectations. Extreme weather events are already devastating communities around the world, and the risk of catastrophic climate change is growing. We must use all the tools available to stand the best chance of averting this.”Calling on Ms Trevelyan and Mr Sharma publicly to confirm the UK’s commitment to ensuring trade will be aligned with climate goals, the letter said: “Your government has a unique opportunity to take bold action on trade policy.”Trade Justice Movement senior adviser Ruth Bergan told The Independent: “The problem with the environment initiatives at the WTO is that most of them are not binding, and currently appear to be mostly talks about setting up talks about cooperation and information exchange.“There is little evidence that they are looking in depth at WTO rules and considering how best they could be rewritten to be aligned with climate goals, at a pace that is commensurate to the challenge we face.”The Glasgow summit accepted the United Nations assessment that a “very rapid” phase-out of fossil fuels is needed, with emissions slashed by 45 per cent by 2030 and net zero achieved by around the middle of the century, said Ms Bergan.And she added: “The WTO needs to send a clear signal that it won’t stand in the way of measures to achieve this.“The phase-out comes hand in hand with a need to quickly build up renewable energy infrastructure, yet governments across the world have faced WTO challenges when they have tried to do this.“Technology transfer will be key to allowing countries to adopt new climate-friendly means of production but the WTO currently favours long patent terms that can prevent this from happening.“The UK is in a unique position to do something about this. The ministerial meeting starting next week will be its first as an independent member and it holds the COP presidency until the end of 2022.“We should use this moment to generate much more collaboration on and urgency regarding the need for the trade regime to properly align with climate goals. Voluntary, non-binding statements are simply not enough. At minimum, the UK should call for a moratorium on WTO challenges to climate measures.”A government spokesperson said: “The UK is a global leader in environment and climate change and was the first major economy to pass new laws for net zero emissions by 2050. Tackling climate change is the government’s top international priority, and trade is part of the solution.“Change at the multilateral level requires consensus, and that is why the UK is using our platform as president of Cop26 and voice at the WTO to push for ambitious international action at MC12 and beyond, promoting trade and investment that will help protect the planet for generations to come.” More

Boris Johnson has defended the pact agreed at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow following a furious backlash from campaigners and vulnerable countries appalled by the “weak” and watered-down deal.The prime minister hailed the agreement, and dismissed criticism over the dramatic change, forced by India and China, that meant that the commitment was to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal power.Mr Johnson insisted that the Glasgow Climate Pact “sounded the death knell for coal power” and claimed that it didn’t matter that the wording of the agreement had been changed at the last minute.“Whether the language is ‘phase down’ or ‘phase out’ doesn’t seem to me, as a speaker of English, to make that much of a difference – the direction of travel is pretty much the same,” he told a Downing Street press conference on Sunday.Mr Johnson welcomed the outcome of the Cop26 conference, describing the agreement as “game-changing” – but admitted that his own feelings at the end of the summit were “tinged with disappointment”.In a pointed message to China and India, he said: “We can lobby, we can cajole, we can encourage, but we cannot force sovereign nations to do what they do not wish to do. It’s ultimately their decision to make and they must stand by it.”Cop26 president Alok Sharma denied climate campaigners’ claims that the pact agreed by world leaders was a failure, and defended the commitment to reduce coal dependence. But he also sought to push the blame for the weakened language onto India and China.“This is the first time we have got language about coal in these [Cop] agreements – that really is historic,” he said. “That means countries have to collectively reduce their use of coal. In terms of China and India, they will have to explain themselves to developing countries.”Many of the poorer countries most vulnerable to climate change were angered over the behind-the-scenes change, and that a proposed funding deal to pay for loss and damage from extreme weather events was kicked into the long grass.The final agreement was condemned as “an utter betrayal” by the Cop26 coalition, an international group of environmental organisations. Spokesperson Asad Rehman attacked the UK government’s “greenwash and PR”, adding: “This Cop has failed to keep 1.5C alive.”Activist Greta Thunberg dismissed the Cop26 climate summit as more “blah, blah, blah” that would fail to see the “immediate” and “drastic” emissions cut needed. Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai also said that the Cop26 summit had not lived up to campaigners’ expectations.Shauna Aminath, the Maldives’ environment minister, said: “We are deeply disappointed with the outcome in here. There’s a lot of work for us to do because really the difference between 1.5C and 2C for us is a death sentence. Our islands are eroding.”The UN’s climate change chief Patricia Espinosa called the pact a “good compromise” and said the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C was “definitely alive” after Glasgow. “I think this is a very positive result in the sense that it gives us very clear guidance on what we need to do in the coming years,” she said.But the UN conceded that the deal had failed to achieve the goals of cutting world carbon dioxide emissions by about half, or of making good on a 12-year-old promise for $100bn a year of support for developing countries.The US climate envoy, John Kerry, also focused on progress, arguing that the summit had been a success despite the “imperfect” pact. “We are in fact closer than we have ever been before to avoiding climate chaos and securing cleaner air, safer water and a healthier planet,” said the Biden administration official.Labour said the target of keeping global warming within 1.5C was in “intensive care” following the agreement reached by world leaders at the end of the Glasgow conference.The opposition accused Mr Johnson of leaving the Cop26 president in a weakened position at the summit because of the UK government’s own overseas aid budget cut and the failure to stop fossil-fuel projects across Britain.Writing for The Independent, shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband said the government must “learn the lessons of what we didn’t succeed in doing in Glasgow”. He added: “It’s time finally to say no to the proposed new coal mine in Cumbria and end the plan for the new Cambo oil field [in Shetland].”Chris Stark, head of the government’s independent advisory body the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said that both the UK and Scottish governments should now set a timetable for ending oil and gas exploration.“It’s clearly useful and helpful to name a date, and then build the public support for that date behind it, and crucially get commercial response that’s behind it,” he told The Herald on Sunday.After a fortnight of negotiations in Glasgow, the Cop26 conference saw a series of deals by countries and businesses on cutting methane emissions, curbing deforestation, switching to electric cars, and driving investment in clean technology, as well as phasing out coal power.Top climate scientist Michael Mann warned against despondency among activists and policymakers after the summit. He tweeted: “Real progress was made [at Cop26], but much more work to be done.” More

Cop26 president Alok Sharma has denied the climate pact agreed by world leaders was a failure and defended the “historic” language on a commitment to reduce coal dependence.In a dramatic last-minute intervention at the Glasgow summit, India and China were able to change the wording of the final deal so coal power generation would be “phased down” rather than “phased out”.Mr Sharma – who appeared to break down briefly as he apologised to delegates and campaigners for the late change – claimed on Sunday that the weakened deal still represented progress.“This is the first time ever that we have got language about coal in a Cop decision – I think that is absolutely historic,” the UK minister told BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.Asked if the pact amounted to a failure to meet ambitions, Mr Sharma said: “I wouldn’t described what we did yesterday as a failure. It’s a historic achievement. We kept 1.5 in reach.”Asked about his emotional apology in Glasgow, Mr Sharma said: “On a personal level, I have invested enormous amounts of the last two years into this … I’d had about six hours sleep in 72 hours previously, so it was an emotional moment.”However, the Cop26 president did condemn China and India – saying they would have to “explain themselves” to countries most at risk from the climate emergency.Mr Sharma said: “There were certain countries that did not want coal language in this compact. We had interventions from China and India in terms of changing the wording … China and India are going to explain themselves to the most climate vulnerable countries in the world.”Defending his role in the late, behind-the-scenes language change on coal, Mr Sharma explained: “My job was to build consensus. At the end of the day, the reason we were able to get this over the line is because over two years my team and I have built trust among countries around the world.”Meanwhile, many of the countries most vulnerable to climate were angry that a proposed funding facility to pay for loss and damage from extreme weather events floods was kicked into the long grass.UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said the “compromise” deal had failed to achieve many of the Cop26 goals – including ending fossil fuel subsidies, putting a price on carbon, and making good on a long-standing promise for $100bn a year of support for developing countries.“Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread,” said Mr Guterres following the end of the summit. “We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe.”But Mr Sharma insisted the final pact was “historic” and said the Glasgow climate summit had achieved its goal of keeping global warming within 1.5C “within reach”.“I can tell you that I have had lots of messages since last night from ministers in many of those [climate vulnerable] countries, thanking us for what the UK has done,” he told Sky News’ Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme. “For the fact we’ve closed off the Paris rulebook, for the fact that there is more money on the table to support them,” he added.“This is a start. We’ve got one year of our presidency, we need to make it count and that means we need to hold countries to account for the commitments that we were made and those commitments have to be translated into action.”The UN’s climate change chief Patricia Espinosa said on Sunday that 1.5C target was still “definitely alive” after the conference in Glasgow.She told the BBC: “We are very far from that goal, but we did manage to get together this big package of different decisions that … gives us very, very specific direction on what we need to work on in order to get there.”Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the two-week summit was a “missed opportunity”, claiming the prime minister was partly to blame for its limited achievements.Mr Johnson and Mr Sharma will be grilled over the climate deal agreed in Glasgow at a press conference later on Sunday. The pair will be answering questions about the global pact at Downing Street at 5pm. More

The world’s hopes of avoiding catastrophic climate change were hanging in the balance tonight, as the deadline for a global deal passed without agreement and Boris Johnson warned: “We risk blowing it.”The two-week United Nations Cop26 summit in Glasgow, which had been due to conclude at 6pm on Friday, was extended as negotiators from 197 countries talked into the night in the hope of securing agreement, with an announcement now expected on Saturday afternoon.The prime minister urged his counterparts in countries around the world to show “conviction and courage” by giving their negotiating teams leeway to make the compromises needed to keep the world on track for limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.He made it clear that there was no prospect of improving on a draft text tabled early on Friday, which was criticised by environmental campaigners for being too weak on issues like fossil fuel energy and financial assistance for poorer countries and vulnerable low-lying nations.However there was widespread recognition of progress made in the proposed Glasgow deal, including action on methane, increased clarity on plans to step up emission reduction and an expression of “deep regret” from the rich world on missing targets for financial assistance to the most vulnerable.Cop26 president Alok Sharma said revised documents for the agreements would be issued early on Saturday and would then be debated, with the summit expected to wrap up in the afternoon.Boris Johnson believes “an ambitious outcome is in sight” at Cop26, according to a readout of his call with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on Friday evening.A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “They discussed progress in the ongoing Cop26 negotiations in Glasgow and agreed that an ambitious outcome is in sight.”The leaders committed to work together to help resolve outstanding issues in the talks and reach an agreement at Cop26 that works for all countries.”As horse-trading entered its final stages, major carbon producers and emitters like Saudi Arabia and China were resisting the inclusion of an explicit pledge on ending fossil fuel dependency, which would be the first of its kind in a UN climate deal.The provision was watered down in Friday’s draft, so that an earlier call to phase out coal and end fossil fuel subsidies became a demand to accelerate “the phase-out of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”.Activists warned that this would allow polluting countries to carry on pouring money into carbon energy sources, giving themselves cover by promising carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology which has so far proved able to absorb only a fraction of one per cent of emissions.The Global Witness campaign said the “false promise” of CCS “should not be used as an excuse to keep the coal industry alive”. And US climate envoy John Kerry said continued subsidies for fossil fuel energy production were “the definition of insanity”.While the world struggled to deliver the $100bn promised in 2009 to help poorer countries cut emissions and adapt to the extreme weather caused by warmer temperatures, some $2.5 trillion has gone into subsidies for fossil fuels over the last five or six years, said Mr Kerry.“We’re allowing to feed the very problem we’re here to try to cure,” he told the conference. “It doesn’t make sense.”But UK officials were fearful that even this softened wording on fossil fuels may not survive into the final text, as polluting countries seek to avoid direction on how they should achieve the emission reductions they have promised.Beijing and Riyadh were also resisting new requirements on transparency around the scale of emissions and the measures being taken to rein them in.And there were continued differences over the implementation of the final element of the 2015 Paris Accord still to be formally signed off – the so-called Article 6 mechanism for carbon trading, which has the potential to blow up a deal in Glasgow.China indicated it was willing to support an agreement, but said the latest draft lacked “specific and detailed arrangements” on how the rich world will deliver funding for adaptation and mitigation measures.The EU and US were resisting the creation of a new “Glasgow funding facility” to allow African countries and island states to access swift sources of cash to deal with loss and damage from climate-driven disasters like hurricanes.Analysts voiced concern that a failure to shift on finance could scupper an agreement altogether, with the G77 coalition of developing countries potentially resorting to filibustering to talk the summit out over the weekend.The UK presidency was holding out hope for a formal request in the final agreement for countries to come back next year at the Cop27 conference in Egypt with enhanced pledges on carbon emissions. This would mark a significant step up in the so-called “ratchet” agreed at Paris, which required new pledges only every five years, and reflects growing concern that action is not coming fast enough in what has been called “the crucial decade” to 2030.Speaking from London as negotiations entered their vital final stage, Mr Johnson said: “What everybody needs to do now is recognise that we really are in the final furlong, and it’s in the final furlong where the horses change places.“What needs to happen now is that people need to understand that the deal that’s on the table – the so-called cover decision – that is the text.“We either find a way of agreeing it or I’m afraid we risk blowing it. That’s the reality.”Mr Johnson said he had been telling fellow leaders in phone calls: “This is the moment – tell your negotiating team how important this is. Tell them to have the conviction and the courage to come together and agree that cover decision because people are watching this around the world. It’s a moment of massive choice for the world.”He acknowledged that it had never been possible to guarantee a maximum of 1.5C warming at Glasgow, but insisted that the deal on the table provided a roadmap to “enable us to go forward and start to remove the threat of anthropogenic climate change”.Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said the world wold have to “resit its climate exam” next year in Egypt.The likely deal in Glasgow “will represent modest progress, but on climate modest progress isn’t enough”, he said.“We know what the aim was, which was to halve global emissions this decade,” said Mr Miliband. “We weren’t going to get all the way there, but we’ve made, I’m afraid, pretty glacial progress.”Speaking on behalf of the EU, European Commission vice president Frans Timmerman said he feared his one-year-old grandson will have to “fight other human beings for water and food” if the world fails to properly tackle the climate emergency.“It’s quite a thought to understand that – if we succeed – he’ll be living in a world that’s liveable, he’ll be living in an economy that is clean with everything at peace with his environment,” Mr Timmermans told delegates.“If we fail – and I mean fail now, in the next couple of years – he will fight with other human beings for water and food.“That’s the stark reality we face.“So, 1.5C is about avoiding a future for our children and grandchildren that is unliveable.” More

Negotiators at the climate change summit in Glasgow face a “monumental challenge” to deliver a credible deal in the few days left to them, Cop26 president Alok Sharma has warned.Officials are still hopeful that an agreed text will be produced by the scheduled end of the summit on Friday afternoon, though many delegates think that the summit will spill over into the weekend as wrangling intensifies on crucial details.There are fears that the crucial reference in Wednesday’s draft agreement  – unprecedented in a UN climate document – to phasing out coal and ending subsidies for fossil fuels is unlikely to survive horse-trading as the deadline approaches.UN secretary general Antonio Guterres today said that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is “on life support”, as the talks have come nowhere near meeting the United Nations priority of securing pledges to cut carbon emissions by half by 2030.In a press conference in Glasgow, Mr Sharma rejected suggestions that the gathering had failed, insisting that the aim of the UK presidency had always been the less ambitious target of being able to say credibly that “we have kept 1.5C within reach”.But he acknowledged that he was still not able to make that claim.“Whilst we have made progress, we are not there yet on the most crucial issues,” he said.“There is still a lot more work to be done and Cop26 is scheduled to close at the end of tomorrow.“Time is running out.”Mr Sharma urged all countries to “strain every sinew to achieve a timely outcome that we can all be proud of”, warning: “We still have a monumental challenge ahead of us.”The last phase of the talks is focusing on finding “ways forward” on finance and carbon markets, he said, adding: “Negotiations on finance really need to accelerate and they need to accelerate now.“Having engaged extensively with parties of the past year and at Cop, I know that everyone understands what is at stake for the future of our planet here in Glasgow.“We still have a monumental challenge ahead of us, but collectively we have no choice but to rise to that challenge and strain every sinew to achieve a timely outcome that we can all be proud of.“Because ultimately, this outcome, whatever it is, will belong to all of us.” More

The government is pledging new funding totalling £290 million, largely to help countries across Asia and the Pacific better prepare for extreme weather and other potential changes.Diplomats and negotiators are hoping to raise further funding pledges from other countries to add to the billions already raised from states including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the US.Ministers from various countries are to focus on the issue on Monday with a dedicated “climate adaptation loss and damage day”.Governments including Bangladesh, the Maldives and the Netherlands – which are expected to be among those most severely impacted by climate change as sea levels rise – are expected to attend the meeting. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, UK International champion on adaptation and resilience for the COP26 presidency, said: “We must act now to stop climate change from pushing more people into poverty. We know that climate impacts disproportionately affect those already most vulnerable.“We are aiming for significant change that will ultimately contribute to sustainable development and a climate-resilient future for all, with no one left behind.” More

Boris Johnson has urged world leaders to make “bold compromises and ambitious commitments” as the Cop26 climate crisis summit enters its final week.In an intervention marking the half-way point of the meeting, the prime minister warned that his colleagues have “one week left to deliver for the world”.A week ago around 120 leaders and theirs negotiators, officials and ministers gathered in Glasgow with the stated aim of limiting global warming to 1.5C.Now teams from 195 countries plus the European Union will work to reach collective agreement on more than 200 pages of text setting out their climate pledges.Issues which need to be resolved are largely those left open by the 2015 Paris agreement. They include how to track countries’ compliance with their climate commitments, and how to make sure nations are not disadvantaged by pledging to reduce emissions faster.During the UK’s Cop presidency, leaders have already made commitments which mean that 90 per cent of the world economy is now committed to net zero by the middle of the century.Significant pledges have also been made to end deforestation by countries representing 88 per cent of the world’s forests, while over 100 states have also agreed to cut their methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 – a significant win. More than 20 states have also committed for the first time to phase out coal power. “There is one week left for Cop26 to deliver for the world, and we must all pull together and drive for the line,” Mr Johnson said as the summit enters its second week.“We have seen nations bring ambition and action to help limit rising temperatures, with new pledges to cut carbon and methane emissions, end deforestation, phase out coal and provide more finance to countries most vulnerable to climate change.“But we cannot underestimate the task at hand to keep 1.5C alive. Countries must come back to the table this week ready to make the bold compromises and ambitious commitments needed.” More